


Drive

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 02:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13226292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: “So, what do you do for fun around here?” asked Scott.Reyes smiled. He spun his shuttle key on his finger and nodded toward the docks.





	Drive

Reyes’s shuttle was parked between two cargo freighters. “I fueled her up yesterday when I found out you were coming. I don’t usually let anyone ride shotgun like this, but for you?”

“Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special.” Ryder studied the beat-up little shuttle. “This is really your ship?”

“Careful, Scott.” Reyes whistled at the ground crew. He unlocked the shuttle door with his omnitool, and it popped with a hydraulic hiss. He pulled the door open and up and swung himself into the pilot seat.

“The M4 Osiris,” he said. “One of only two brought to Andromeda, and the only one on Kadara. She’s a recon shuttle, designed for long range exploration. Isn't she something?”

Scott placed a hand on the hull. The shuttle certainly was….something.  Unlike the blocky civilian Kodiaks the Initiative used, the Osiris had a domed head and a tapered body that looked barely big enough to accommodate two people. Ryder wasn’t a pilot or an engineer, but he knew an outmoded ship when he saw one.

“Can’t imagine why they only brought two,” he said.

“Just get in,” said Reyes.

Ryder swung himself into the passenger seat. The leather was faded and gripped sweatily at the backs of his legs. He peered into the tiny cargo hold, which was empty save for a few secured crates of emergency supplies.

Reyes began the start-up sequence. He didn't look at the console as he flipped switches and pushed buttons, and soon the shuttle hummed to life.

“Buckle up,” said Reyes. The doors shut at the same time and sealed. The sulphurous air of Kadara mixed with the filtered air of the cockpit.

“You have clearance,” came a voice over the comm. A light in front of their dock turned from red to green, and Reyes pulled up on the controls.

The shuttle rose off the ground with obvious strain. Ryder was used to the effortless lift of the Kodiak, and the way the Osiris vibrated as it attempted to take off vertically made his knuckles go white on his knees.

“You have this thing serviced lately?” Ryder asked. “By someone other than you?”

Reyes smiled at that.

The shuttle at last pulled free. Once the nose was clear, Reyes pointed it at the sky, and the thrusters pushed them into altitude—Kadara Port falling away behind them.

Ryder’s stomach fell behind with it. “No inertia dampeners?”

“Trust me, this is better,” said Reyes.

“ _This_ is better?” The little shuttle bumped through the air like a boat on choppy water. Turbulence rattled and shook the dash until it sounded like it was about to fly apart.

“Would I put you in any kind of danger?” asked Reyes.

Ryder tightened his seatbelt.

“I’m a pilot, Scott,” said Reyes, with a hint of annoyance. “You want to ask me how many other pilots applied to the Initiative and were rejected?”

“I always assumed you forged your application.”

“I did forge it. But the practical exam? I had to prove I could fly over a hundred classes of ship in every conceivable environment and crisis condition, both in simulations and in the field. It took over a year.”

“No kidding.” Ryder felt a little embarrassed. The only thing he’d had to do to get into the Initiative was sign his name on the dotted line. “So, what’s the story behind this one?”

“About what you’d expect. I stripped her down, pulled out her guts, and put them back in again according to my own specs.”

“Oh, I see.” Ryder couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s all on you then that this thing flies like a tin can?”

“What can I say, I like having control. There’s less interference this way between me in the ship. It responds to me, and I respond to it.” 

They flew in silence for a time while little banks of cloud parted around them. The domed head of the shuttle was perfect for observation—Scott could turn his head in any direction and see some part of the landscape. It was an impressive change from the smaller, more structurally sound windows of a Kodiak or even the NOMAD. 

Mostly, though, he watched Reyes. The smuggler kept his eyes on the horizon, relaxed and giddy at the same time. Ryder could hear the creak of his leather gloves as he squeezed the controls and coaxed the shuttle through turbulent winds.

It stirred something tender in him. In some ways, Reyes was still a mystery. Seeing him in his element like this, confident, unguarded, was a rarity.

“You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” said Ryder.

A smirk crept up one side of Reyes’s mouth. “Going?”

“Where are we putting down?”

“We’re not.” At Ryder’s look, he said, “That’s the general idea of ‘going for a ride.’”

Ryder groaned and kicked a boot up on the dash. “Really?”

“You don’t like this?”

“I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather be doing than sitting,” said Ryder. “I thought we’d be going hiking or something.”

Reyes laughed. “Have I given you any impression that I’m an outdoorsman?”

“Well okay, I thought we’d be doing something fun.”

“This is fun. This is what _I_ do for fun.”

“Waste fuel?” Ryder stared down at the mountains scrolling slowly by.

Reyes was quiet for a moment. “How much of Kadara have you seen, really?”

“About as much as anyone, I guess.” At times, it felt like he had explored every inch of the valley below the port. “I could probably navigate Draullir with my eyes closed by now.”

“So could half the raiders and pirates you gun down. All you’ve seen is one little corner, and whatever fits in the viewport of the Tempest each time you dock. But the rest of the planet?”

Reyes flicked on the radio. There was a burst of short-wave transmissions from other ships in the area.

“We’re still in Kadara Port airspace,” said Reyes. “We’ll head north for an hour or so.”

“Is that safe?” asked Ryder.

“Not particularly, but I know the route and can outmaneuver any trouble we come across.” Reyes gave him a pat on the thigh. “Relax.”

Ryder tried to. The cabin was chilly, despite the temperature regulation of the filtration system. It was hard not to doze off as the minutes crept by. Slowly, though, the voices on the radio started to fade out. More and more they were replaced with static, until there was only static, and Reyes flicked the radio off.

“Kadara was a backwater even before the kett arrived,” said Reyes. “You won’t find much traffic between settlements. The nearest one is about four hundred miles northwest, and it’s home to only about fifty angara.”

“You’ve been that far?”

“And farther. I do this to clear my head.”

Ryder considered asking what would happen if Reyes crashed in so remote an area, but he kept that to himself.  

“Most of the planet is uninhabited,” said Reyes. “There are entire continents that haven’t been touched in centuries. Ah, just in time.”

The sun was starting to set. Kadara’s piss yellow sky darkened to pink. Far below, the lakes and ponds of turquois water pinked too, like mirrors, burnishing the surrounding mountains to crimson and scarlet.

Reyes pushed a button, and the flight of the shuttle leveled out. The autopilot engaged, he took his hands off the controls and sat back in his seat.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah,” said Scott. “It would have been just as beautiful back at your apartment.”

“You are the worst date. Here, look at this.” Reyes pulled a notepad out of a net side-pocket and set it in Scott’s lap.

“Is that actual paper?” asked Ryder.

“And a pencil.” Reyes showed it to him. Scott flipped back the cover, and the pages beneath were scrawled with intricate sketches of topography—the mossy spread of rivers, the spines of mountains and the dark shadows of canyons. There were notes in the margins and a key of symbols.

"You did these?"" asked Ryder.

"I did."

“You do realize there are satellite scans of this entire planet?” asked Ryder.

“Of course, but this isn’t about practicality.”

“You fly out into the middle of nowhere and draw yourself maps?”

“Maps of where the Collective can set up caches and hideouts, as well as possible mineral deposits for Ditaeon. It’s easier to look at scans, but I like the feel of this. There's something about putting it all down with my own hands and eyes that's just better.”

Ryder thumbed through the pages. The sketches were impressive—what they lacked in draftsmanship they made up in meticulousness.

“This is my world, you know?” said Reyes.  

Below them, the sunset unveiled the landscape of Kadara. Sheer cliff faces that plummeted into deep valleys of shadow, sweeping plains that crawled up the mountains, deep rivers and gulches that pooled in iridescent lakes and springs. Waterfalls, mushrooms tall as skyscrapers, herds of six-legged beasts streaming across the mesas--all of it sharpened by the dying light.

“I love this planet,” said Reyes, and there was nothing joking in his voice now. “We’ve made it ours. And every now and then, I get in my little shuttle, fly out where no one can reach me, and just look at it. I think about all the routes I can take, all the courses I can chart in any direction, and know that there is everything to see for the first time. I could set my shuttle down on a mountaintop and watch the sunrise, or land in a basin and swim in a cold lake, and be completely alone with myself. It feels real to me. Like I actually belong here.”

They sat in silence for a long time, watching the clouds disperse and mountains roll by.

“That’s the way the Initiative was supposed to feel,” said Reyes, quieter.

Ryder’s throat tightened at that. He thought of all the planets his role as Pathfinder had taken him to. Elaadan, Havarl, Eos, Voeld. He thought of how it felt when he drove the Nomad across them, the thrill of familiarity every time he recognized a landmark from a previous trip—some hillside or inlet that had been utterly unimportant the first time around.

He thought of all the times he'd wished Reyes was with him so that he could show him those landmarks firsthand.

Kadara was the only planet they had both explored. It was the only one Ryder looked forward to coming back to. He had put down roots here, and it made its successes and struggles intimate in a way that no other place compared.

It was home.

“There’s so much I could show you,” said Reyes.

“Then show me,” said Ryder. He closed the notepad and placed it carefully back in its pocket. “Take me for a ride.”

Reyes smiled and queezed his hand. Then, easing himself back into the controls, he disengaged the autopilot and steered their shuttle northwest to a point on his map, the sun painting the planet red and gold beneath them. 


End file.
